Yearbook calls kids 'mentally retarded'

Parents of special education students at Mesquite High School in Mesquite, Texas, are outraged by a yearbook section that called their kids "mentally retarded." The Mesquite Independent School District wanted to honor students in the special education program with their own section of the yearbook. Spokeswoman Laura Jobe said the section read: "Some of the disabilities the students in the Special Education program have are being blind, deaf, or non-verbal … (student's names) are both blind and death, as well as mentally retarded." Administrators confiscated all the yearbooks this week to remove the offending section after parents criticized the wording, KDFW-TV, Dallas/Fort Worth, reported. "That word is hideous and the fact that it could get put in a yearbook and be overlooked by a faculty adviser which is an adult," said one parent, Jana Lazarus. "I can see the kids doing it and missing it but not an adult." The school's principal plans to call parents to apologize, and the yearbooks should be returned to students sometime next week.